Category: business

The indie games community is ablaze with much shouting about how one of the big portals (I won’t link to them) has just cut the price of every single game to $9.99, and is offering a lot of them for $6.99.

Where the developers notified in advance, consulted or given the option to opt out?

NO.

Some portals (the ones I prefer to deal with) are really good like that. They treat the relationship as a real partnership, they credit you correctly and link to your site, and try to co-ordinate any sales or promotions with you. Other portals act like WalMart treating it’s suppliers, and basically regard the game developers as people producing cattle-feed.

This price war is going to be a major kick in the nuts for people whose business plan amounts to “make what these big publishers want, and take what they offer me”. I have to say, it was predictable a long way off. I even wrote an article be-moaning the complete lack of independence amongst so-called ‘indie’ developers a while ago.

For me, the solution was easy. I don’t consider my games to be disposable throwaway match-3 clones and do not want to be priced the same as a game that even a child finds boring after 20 minutes, so I’ve sent out the emails that remove my games from that portal. I know another indie dev has done the same thing. We have decent direct sales, and we base our businesses on selling through multiple channels at the same time. This is true independence, when nobody can tell you what games to make, or dictate terms to you. This week, people with strong direct sales were able to breathe a sigh of relief that they are not 100% dependent on portals.

We live in interesting times.

I just agreed a contract with my first contractor to work on ‘The Space Game’. I basically trawled the internet for the best nebula photoshop tutorials, the best nebula textures for sale, and the best examples I could find of people drawing spacey nebula backdrops. I then found my preferred artist, and managed to contact them on a web message board and then later discuss budgets and artwork.

What I find interesting about the procedure is I had no idea who this artist was. As it turns out, said individual is male, in his twenties and from California. But the key thing is, I had no idea. He/she could be female, he/she could be black/hispanic/white. They could be disabled,  obese,  have any number of other characteristics, and I don’t know and likely never will.

which is exactly how it should be.

I’m employing this guy to do artwork for me, and all I care about is how good the artwork is, and how professionally they do the work. I don’t need to know anything else about them, and I think it’s in many ways a great thing for employers in general not to do so. The reason I think this, is because as more and more people get employed in this way, it’s really going to help reduce sexism, ageism, racism and all other forms of discrimination.

I once worked for a guy who said he wouldn’t have given me the job if he’s noticed during the interview I’d once had my ear pierced. he also proudly told me he’d never employ anyone black, or with a foreign sounding name. What a scumbag. As it goes, I’m average weight, male, white, and have a london accent, which means in the UK I’m probably the least discriminated person imaginable. I *did* get a lot of grief as a teenager and twentiesomething for having long hair though.

Anyway, I’m rambling now, but I just thought it worth noting that at the same time that the USA gets it’s first ever black president, there is a constant revolution going on amongst people doing ‘virtual’ work, where what color you are not only doesn’t matter, it’s’ not even information your employer will ever have unless you want them to.

That’s my thought for the day.

I just released another new patch for Democracy 2 (1.23) the changes are these:

Married Tax Allowance now makes parents happier
University grants make parents happier
Increased probability of prison riot event
Reduced positive effects of legal aid policy
Bailing out company dilemma now costs money
Creationism policy now affects technological backwater and technological advantage situations
Oil prices now affect the chances of the petrol protests situation
Reduced effectiveness of free buss passes for retired people
New Space Program policy.
New Pirates Attacking Oil tanker event.
Liberals are now angered slightly by citizenship tests
Stem cell research now boosts lifespan

I also have spent all morning doing sales analysis and working out how to keep selling more games. It’s possible that I’m going to always dedicate Monday morning (at least) to being the day where I work on support and marketing for the older games. It’s easy to just ‘forget’ about the old games and get obsessed with the new one, but I can’t afford to do that. My target for all my games is to sell 5,000 copies of each one direct, before I can relax and feel that at least they were not a flop. By this reckoning, Kudos:Rock Legend was a flop, but it did sell OK on Mac, and there are always the portal sales to consider too.

The big problem is web traffic. There are maybe a billion people on-line, and maybe 1% of them play games that’s a lot of potential buyers. The percentage of people who would maybe buy Kudos 2 or Democracy 2 who have actually visited my website must be pretty small. The problem is, it’s not easy to know how to reach them. I currently spend about 10% of my income on advertising. I know some people spend a much bigger chunk, but I use the rest to eat and pay bills. Plus it’s not easy knowing where to find ads that actually convert into real-world sales.

I’ll be back working on the space game tomorrow.

I’m happy to announce that three of my top selling games are now on sale through the Direct2Drive website. Here are the links:

Democracy 2
http://www.direct2drive.com/481/7494/product/Buy-Democracy-2-Download

Kudos Rock Legend
http://www.direct2drive.com/481/7496/product/Buy-Kudos-Rock-Legend-Download

Kudos 2
http://www.direct2drive.com/481/7495/product/Buy-Kudos-2-Download

Working with direct2drive, stardock and gamersgate has been very easy and stress-free. I’ve been with stardock and GamersGate long enough to already have been paid. Those guys pay me directly, and quickly with no fuss, and much much faster (and at better royalty rates) than the ‘casual’ game portals. with all the insane competition to sell diner-dash re-skins, I’m glad to be moving away from the casual game genre. Kudos and Kudos 2 were never really ‘uber-casual’ but I think I’m better suited to doing the more strategic, geeky hardcore games than those next, (although i still have a very mainstream uber-casual game idea I’m holding on to).

hence that screenshot yesterday of spaceships fighting. That’s a game those 3 ‘hardcore’ portals will love.

Still no reply from steam. Ho hum.